1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multiple site integrated security system method and communications protocol. More particularly, the present invention relates to a human oriented system of security service and a computer implemented universal communications protocol which facilitates communications between real time security hardware and a real time security monitoring software system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In addition to traditional threats to security such as burglary, vandalism and arson, today's complex national and international political conflicts are putting increased pressure on facilities and organizations of all kinds to provide effective security systems for the safety and protection of personnel, property and surroundings.
Devices and systems for the provision of safety and security of persons and property are well known. Examples of different types and kinds of security systems for protection and surveillance methods of building structures and surrounding areas are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,204,762 B1, 6,154,133, 6,097,429, and 5,825,283.
In general, the structure and function of most security systems involves electronic surveillance equipment monitored at a centralized location. Current development of security systems attempts to do away with human-oriented services and replace the human security guard with high technology solutions to security problems. Only a limited number of currently developed security systems utilize a combination of guards in close conjunction with the electronic equipment. Most of the time, these systems involve one guard who monitors a video feed or alarm panel for intrusion or other related alerts. These security systems are commonly built, installed and implemented without any regard for the particular facilities of other systems, for example, the facilities of built-in environmental and climate control, the tracking of people and assets within the building or complex, and fire/smoke detection as well as transport systems such as elevators, etc.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have a new and improved security system which not only enhances the human security guard services, but also integrates facilities management, and allows for identification and global positioning satellite (GPS) tracking of people as well as assets such as computers, and other valuable instrumentation, all in a readily scalable configuration utilizing off the shelf electronic security and communications components.
An electronic surveillance system for remote guarding of an area using an operator station including a signal receiver with television display, radiant energy selection control, and energy level controller is known in the prior art. Such a device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,204,762 B1. The novel invention remotely controls and directs an apparatus “weapon” for integration with traditionally secured facilities, remote detection devices, closed circuit TV, and a remotely-located, manned control station. While such a computerized system is helpful in detection of unauthorized personnel in a given area and does seek to incorporate pre-existing security devices, there is no provision which would allow for the irreplaceable and highly effective presence of human security guards, guards that are further enhanced by electronic wireless communications and monitoring.
Additionally, the entire system depends upon the installation and presence of numerous hard wired security devices in a given area and is not readily scalable to incorporate larger areas in the surveillance area in a short period of time without extensive outlay of effort and installation of new equipment. The acoustic energy “weapon” used as a deterrent to intruders is not confined to any given space and might pose a threat to anyone, including authorized individuals, within hearing distance.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have a new and improved enhanced security guard system which would allow for computerized and wireless communications and monitoring of human security guards and their activities with a centralized location, in addition to conventional security devices and which would be scalable with minimal time and material expenditure, and which would provide for human guards to act as a more rapid and effective deterrent to intruders.
The exit guard system described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,154,133 addresses the requirements of providing areas with detection of movement of a subject along an exit path in an unauthorized direction. This system further provides for a human monitor at a centralized location with added supervision of the deactivation of the security alarm system only by authorized personnel.
However, within this system there is no human security guard on site actively patrolling the area. This electronically augmented human presence is irreplaceable as a deterrent to potential intruders as well as providing for flexibility in terms of monitoring and responding to a variety of situations that might arise.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have a new and improved, technologically augmented human presence automatically reporting to a centralized location, or a remote monitoring station through communications over a global computer network or via satellite link, which could then monitor and record guard activities as well as utilize pre-existing event detection technology, such as motion, video and perimeter control devices to alert those guards of real time events taking place on their shift.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,097,429 describes a relatively sophisticated security system utilizing video images obtained from a plurality of cameras relayed to a site control unit equipped with an automated image processor. The images are then relayed to a security system operator who then analyzes the images and informs authorities of an intrusion.
While this system utilizes advanced technological features to distinguish between actual intrusions and false alarms (friend or foe), the absence of a human guard which would serve to discourage intrusions is notably absent. Moreover, the presence of human guards makes those that are present within the facility feel protected and well taken care of, and these individuals will often speak to the security guards or become familiar with them to avoid any misunderstanding as to their access authorization or the like.
Additionally, the highly automated image processor and related complex software used to differentiate between actual foe intrusions and friendly false alarms is inherently limited in its capability to observe, compare and react to the myriad of potential one time or entirely novel situations which might occur. This type of security monitoring can only be accomplished with highly trained, well equipped, and competently supervised human security guards on duty in numbers corresponding to the amount of space or activity required to be secure from outside threats.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have a new and improved system for technological augmentation of human guards who are irreplaceable in terms of providing a deterrent to intrusion and who are capable of observing, assessing and responding to novel and unusual situations and whose actions would automatically be reported to a centralized headquarters with integrated automated daily events and incident real time reporting.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,825,283 provides for an apparatus for monitoring subjects having a location determining device which provides the location of the subject to a processor. The processor then stores and retrieves data generated or received by the processor. The primary means by which the subject is tracked is by usage of a GPS. Comparison of the parameters of given geographical boundaries to the data from the location determining device may determine if the subject has deviated from those parameters. The claimed invention mandates detection of at least one physiological parameter of the subject in order to compare existing subject data previously stored.
This imaginative invention does provide for tracking and determination of the general area in which a subject is to be found and a means by which to compare the location with a pre-determined geographic location. Unfortunately, while the location and tracking device may show a general area in which the subject is located, there is no way of determining the exact location of the subject at any given point in time.
In addition, this system again depends upon a complex processor which must be programmed with any number of parameters. The system may fail to operate properly or may not operate at all if incorporated into a pre-existing security system, especially one having less complex processors available on site.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have a new and improved system for technological augmentation of human guards automatically reporting exact location and time to a centralized headquarters with daily events and incident reporting automation which could give exact locations and time records of movement of the guards which would readily incorporate pre-existing hardware and software. Moreover, it would be highly desirable to enable said guards to wear a garment which would incorporate a wireless communications apparatus, or have said guards carry hand-held computers for this purpose.
With respect to security system and environmental system monitoring there have been no significant advances recently, especially in the area of software development that can be used to integrate far flung and varying system hardware configurations. However, the development of global computer networks such as the Internet have sparked new languages capable of being effectively used in numerous alternative applications. One such language is Hypertext Markup Language or HTML and another such language is Extensible Markup Language or XML.
Most documents on the Web are stored and transmitted in HTML. HTML is a simple language well suited for hypertext, multimedia, and the display of small and reasonably simple documents. HTML is based on SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language, ISO 8879), a standard system for defining and using document formats.
SGML allows documents to describe their own grammar—that is, to specify the tag set used in the document and the structural relationships that those tags represent. HTML applications are applications that hard-wire a small set of tags in conformance with a single SGML specification. Freezing a small set of tags allows users to leave the language specification out of the document and makes it much easier to build applications, but this ease comes at the cost of severely limiting HTML in several important respects, chief among which are extensibility, structure, and validation.                Extensibility. HTML does not allow users to specify their own tags or attributes in order to parameterize or otherwise semantically qualify their data.        Structure. HTML does not support the specification of deep structures needed to represent database schemas or object-oriented hierarchies.        Validation. HTML does not support the kind of language specification that allows consuming applications to check data for structural validity on importation.        
In contrast to HTML stands generic SGML. A generic SGML application is one that supports SGML language specifications of random complexity and makes possible the qualities of extensibility, structure, and validation missing from HTML. SGML makes it possible to define your own formats for your own documents, to handle large and complex documents, and to manage large information repositories. However, full SGML contains many optional features that are not needed for Web applications and has proven to have a cost/benefit ratio unattractive to current vendors of Web browsers.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has created an SGML Working Group to build a set of specifications to make it easy and straightforward to use the beneficial features of SGML on the Web. Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, very flexible text format derived from SGML (ISO 8879). Originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing, XML is also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web.
XML advantages:                Enables internationalized media-independent electronic publishing        Allows industries to define platform-independent protocols for the exchange of data, especially the data of electronic commerce        Delivers information to client users in a form that allows automatic processing after receipt.        Makes it easier to develop software to handle specialized information distributed over the Web        Makes it easy for people to process data using inexpensive software        Allows people to display information the way they want it, under style sheet control        Provides a standard packaging/transport mechanism for any type of informationXML Syntax        
The best way to appreciate what XML documents look like is with a simple example. Imagine a company that sells products on-line. Marketing descriptions of the products are written in HTML, but names and addresses of customers, and also prices and discounts are formatted with XML. Here is the information describing a customer:
<customer-details id+ “AcPharm39156”> <name>Acme Pharmaceuticals Co.</name> <address country+ “US”> <street>7301 Smokey Boulevard</street> <city>Smallville</city>  <state>Indiana</state>  <postal>94571</postal> </address></customer-details>
The XML syntax uses matching start and end tags, such as <name> and </name>, to mark up information. A piece of information marked by the presence of tags is called an element: elements may be further enriched by attaching name-value pairs (for example, country+“US” in the example above) called attributes. Its simple syntax is easy to process by machine, and has the attraction of remaining understandable to humans. XML is based on SGML, and is familiar in look and feel to those accustomed to HTML.
Building Applications with XML
XML is a low-level syntax for representing structured data. You can use this simple syntax to support a wide variety of applications. For this reason, XML now underpins a number of Web markup languages and applications.
Outside and inside W3C, many groups are already defining new formats for information interchange. The number of XML applications is growing rapidly, and the growth appears likely to continue. There are many areas, for example, the health-care industry, the on-line revenue generation, database analysis and government and finance, where XML applications are used to store and process data. XML as a simple method for data representation and organization will mean that problems of data incompatibility and tedious manual re-keying will become more manageable.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have an XML based communications method and protocol capable of enabling the integration of varying security and environmental hardware monitoring devices, and allowing communication between said devices and a core system application for the purpose of monitoring security systems and/or environmental systems within one or more subject sites, both on site and remotely using direct and indirect means.